washington post" website, a story citing 19 advisers and administration officials saying the mood at the white house verges on mania and the president has decided to remove another top national security official, president trump according to "the washington post" deciding to remove h.r. mcmaster as his national security advisor. why not. that does it for us, it's time for "the last word with lawrence o'donnell." >> i read that, and i wondered what was the mood before? what was the word for it? why wouldn't it be mania. i have to say some of what the postwas describing is what people in the country tell me they're feeling every day when

they watch the white house, what is the next crazy thing that's going to happen. these people seem worried that the next crazy thing might be something to happen to them. >> that tells you something about the mind set of the people in there. it is also remarkable for me to look at these -- there's four "the washington post" reporters by lined here and they're trump administration veterans who have seen the craziness, who know how blown out the number line is in terms of what counts as acceptable or predictable behavior here, these people who have seen what the trump administration has been thus far are incredulous talking about how white house officials appear as characters in an absurd farce. that's not the kind of hyperbole. they're saying they're that overwhelmed. >> and these reporters have talked to these same sources many times before.

so they're telling us their mood now is something very different than it has been already. they have plenty of reason to be worried about what's going on there now. maybe the mcmaster thing is the one tipping them. what do you think the odds are it will be an upgrade in national security? it was before when he went from michael flynn to h.r. mcmaster. is there any chance of another upgrade in that job? >> i don't think we know thatch about how h.r. mcmaster has been at his job. some much of the reporting has been about the president's feelings about him and not about the incredibly difficult job of the national security council, so i don't think we know how good a job he has done. it's hard to imagine how somebody else might slide into it. for me to have, you know, lost

one national security advisor to a felony conviction and a cooperation plea with the special prosecutor to a forced out fbi director, to the a forced out attorney general, to have fired the secretary of state. to have no permanent secretaries in six of those jobs, nobody is in any of those. to be about to fire the deputy director of the fbi, he's thinking of doing that too and now to throw out the national security advisor before you go talk to the north korean dictator for fun, this to -- national security is a gasoline soaked tinder box on a good day and this guy has decided he likes playing with zippos. >> there's a studio audience here. you're getting laughs. it's better working with a studio audience.

you can tell what's working. here's the second national security advisor, if he's leaving, he'll be the first trump national security advisor in history to leave without being accused of a crime by the fbi. >> that's true. >> come on. they're maturing, growing up in that building. >> that alone is probably worth the fourth star. >> thank you, rachel. >> good luck, my friend. >> the trump organization says it's old news that special prosecutor robert mueller has subpoenaed the organization to turn over documents, documents involving russia. and it's old news within the trump organization because according to the "new york times" that subpoena was delivered in, quote, recent weeks, but it is new news to us, to all of us today and the rest of the world, that the "new york times" is reporting that the special prosecutor has

subpoenaed the trump organization. the order is the first known instance of the special counsel demanding records directly related to president trump's businesses, bringing the investigation closer to the president. the trump organization released a statement today saying they publically stated last year that they would fully cooperate with the congressional investigations and the special prosecutor's investigation. the statement said this is old news and our assistance and cooperation with the various investigations remains the same today. the "new york times" says the subpoena was delivered in recent weeks. so let's just take a glance back at the single-most panic-filled tweet president trump has issued in recent weeks. it would be this one. witch hunt! he couldn't even come up with a sentence. just the primal scream in all caps, witch hunt, exclamation point. february 27th, a couple weeks

ago, on a tuesday, donald trump just screams witch hunt on twitter. was that the day the trump organization lawyers told the president that robert mueller was finally knocking on their door and he wasn't knocking politely. he was banging the door down with a subpoena, a subpoena that makes it a crime for the trump organization to try to destroy or even misplace any of those documents. this is the subpoena that donald trump has feared more than any other. this is the kind of subpoena that destroyed president richard nixon. it wasn't a subpoena that required nix on to testify that destroyed his presidency. it was to produce documents and audio tapes of his conversations in the white house. and what richard nixon was forced to hand over after fighting that subpoena to the people court and losing was the

information that proved richard nixon committed crimes and that was the end of the nixon presidency. there are worst places to look, it could be in the files of the "national enquirer" and stories they refused to establish because of the friendship with donald trump. or it could be the in the confidenty agreements that the president has signed using the name david dennison that's what he used in the confidentiality agreement with stormy daniels and possibly countless other women who found themselves in the same position as stormy daniels. but the worst place to find what donald trump has done is inside the trump organization and we now know that even stormy

daniels' case has involved a lawyer in the trump organization. but we know robert mueller is looking for evidence of much more important stuff than what president trump did with stormy daniels he wants to know what business he did with russia, what business donald trump tried to do with russia, what business he hoped to do with russia and what business him and his family hopes to do with russia. last year he called it a red line if robert mueller investigates his finances. he didn't tell the "new york times" with what he would do if robert mueller crossed that red line, but knowing donald trump as we do, the very first thing we would expect donald trump to do is scream witch hunt on twitter.

and some day we'll know the date that robert mueller subpoenaed the trump organization will be become a publically known historical fact some day. and so we will know if donald trump's february 27th primal scream of witch hunt was the day that he got a call from new york, from the trump organization, telling him that donald trump's business just received its first subpoena from robert mueller. we now know that in response to that subpoena the trump organization will be handling over to the special prosecutor any and all documents, e-mails, texts and any other material they have concerning donald trump's attempt to close a deal on a building project in moscow that would give him something he has dreamed about for decades, a trump tower in moscow. and no one knows more about that deal than the authors of the new book "russian roulette" michael isikoff and david corn.

they are here to begin the discussions. the subpoena has arrived officially. you managed to dig out a lot for this book without subpoena power. >> yes. would have been great if we had it. >> what is the special prosecutor going to find with a subpoena delivered to the trump organization that's interested in the trump organization's dealing with russian. >> it makes a lot of sense that mueller is doing this. everything he's done is sort of like the tip of the iceberg, we see bits and piece but we don't know where he's aiming at. in our book we detail several interactions trump had with russian business interests and how key they are with his own view of himself and his relationship with vladimir putin and to what happened during the campaign. one of the biggest ones, most prominent came when he went to miss universe in 2013. he used that beauty pageant as a steppingstone to do a big deal

in moscow because we teamed up with an oligarch -- he was called putin's builder because he was so close to putin. trump was there in moscow with two missions in mind, other than picking finalists in the beauty contest. it was to meet putin and forge a bond and cut a deal with agalarov for a big building. it's important to have made that connection because that's how during the company the russian government reached out to the the campaign. it was agalarov and his son and his business partner they said russian wants to help. that's how it all began. >> i should say if you want to understand that trump tower meeting that is so -- >> the donald junior, paul manafort, jared kushner gathered in trump tower. >> the russian government has

documents that it wants to provide to you that could help you tear down hillary clinton and help your campaign. so if you want to the understand that meeting, you have to know how it came about and the people who set it up are the people who donald trump was trying to do business with, did do business with in moscow. so to some extent i'm a little surprised it's taken this long for mueller to get there because it's been in plain sight for a while that these are the people who are central to that part of the case. now i should say, in our book we had new information that expands upon the relationship that donald trump had with these people, including the first trump tower meeting before -- 17 months before that trump tower meeting that's gotten all this attention, there was an earlier trump tower meeting in which agalarov, one of the key guys

who set up the meeting, and rob goldstone who sent the e-mails that enticed everybody to attend the meeting in the trump tower meeting with donald trump himself at that meeting, as we report, donald trump gives the first hints to agalarov who no doubt passed it on to the kremlin that donald trump was planning to run for president in 2016. >> and there's another key piece of this, another chapter of the book. in 2015, it's been reported that donald trump, while he was running for president, he ha had a secret, he didn't tell anybody. the secret was he was trying once again to do a deal through an intermediary. this time he wasn't working with the agalarovs, he was working with a company who said he had experience doing this and said he owned the company. he didn't own the company. three offshore companies owned

the company. you might want to the look at that. and again he brings us back to the steele dossier that's dismissed or disregarded. but one of the things he writes in the first memo is for years moscow has tried to coopt and cultivate donald trump by dangling business deals in front of him. here are two deals, one while he's running for president. >> i want to read one passage from the book that takes us back to 2001, this is from a gossip columnist on the howard stern show. it says in the middle of an on air spat in 2001, aj benza took a shot at trump by saying he bangs russian people. he used to call me and say i was

just in russia, the girls have no morals. so there's a little echo of the steele dossier in there. but how far back does his -- >> it goes back 30 years. to the days of the soviet union. >> 1987. >> he went at the invitation of the soviet government who wanted to do a deal with him. he killed it because they wanted 51% and he would only get 49%. but the key thing about the quote, besides the salacious element, one thing is known, if you're a prominent person and go to moscow and you do anything that has any sordedness to it, it's being noted, it's being recorded. so steele, who was an expert in russian affairs and an expert on the use of russian compromising blackmail material, he was i

think quite worried that the president of the united states or the presidential candidate might be susceptible to black male and if anything that aj said is correct then steele was right in a big sense of the picture. >> if trump was going there since 1987, it's fair to assume during the soviet regime and russian regime, they were watching every moment of his life when he was there, and possibly when he was here for that matter. but if benza was saying in 2001, the russian girls have no morals and they were having sex, they knew about those, and it might be fair to assume donald trump was a less careful man in the 1990s by the time he was in his 60s and 70s and visiting russia as a married man. >> that's a fair assumption. but it's also a fair assumption that the successor to the kgb

was as careful as they had always been. they would have noted this. as we talk about in the book, the history of the compromise by the fsb, learning from their fore fathers in the kgb, in fact, vladimir putin, we have the story in the book, came to power as a result of a sexual compromise, there was a prosecutor on the tale of boris yeltsen and suddenly a tape shows up of this prosecutor in bed with two prostitutes. it shows up on russian television. the prosecutor is forced to resign. the director of the fsb at the time was vladimir putin. after that tape emerged, he's named the successor as the president of russia.

this is something that putin and his people know how to do. >> quickly, david, if you had subpoena power, if you had mueller's subpoena power, where would you aim it in the trump organization? >> i'd look at his loans. he has hundreds of millions of dollars in loans from the deutsche bank. it's odd that deutsche bank was so leveraged with him. it's the private side of the bank so you don't know where the money is coming from. i'd look at that. i'd look at the records for the two deals we talk about and what might have happened afterwards. i think there's a big stack of paper that mueller can look at. and, of course, throw in for good measure, the tax returns. >> i'm sure he'll get his hands on that. >> i don't know if amazon has a spot higher than number one, but that's where this book is and writ's going to be for a while. thank you for joining us. appreciate it. >> thank you.

the mueller investigation gets closer to the family with the subpoena we discovered was delivered a few weeks ago. getting dragged out of the white house. another case of that. this time someone with a gambling habit, gambling tens of thousands of dollars at a time. whatever you do to stay healthy. you might be missing something. your eyes. that's why there's ocuvite. ocuvite helps replenish nutrients

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we have a breaking news update to that report we brought

you and i discussed with rachel about the possibility that h.r. mcmaster would be fired as the national security advisor. that's a report in the "the washington post" tonight. the white house has just released this tweet from the press secretary saying just spoke to potu and general h.r. mcmaster contrary to reports they have a good working relationship and there are no changes at the nsc. we will discuss that later in this hour and balance it with what we have learned from "the washington post" tonight. that is simply a tweet from the white house press secretary, so its credibility is whatever you want to assign to it. here is what the president told the "new york times" last july about the special prosecutor investigating his finances. >> if mueller is looking at your finances and your family's finances unrelated to russia, is that a red line? >> would that be a breech of what his actual charge is? >> i would say yes. >> when asked if crossing that red line would lead to firing

robert mueller, donald trump said, quote, i can't answer that question because i don't think it's going to happen. well, now it has happened, so what is the president going to do? in order to fire the special prosecutor, the president would have to fire the attorney general first, because only the attorney general has the authority to fire the special prosecutor, the current attorney general has recused himself from overseeing the special prosecutor's investigation, so only the deputy attorney general, rod rosenstein, can fire the special prosecutor, and he has made it clear that he will not do that. so it doesn't seem coincidental that there are new rumors about the president firing jeff sessions. according to "vanity fair," according to two republicans in regular contact with the white house, there have been talks that trump could replace jeff sessions with scott pruitt. also pruitt would presumably have a good shot at passing a senate confirmation hearing. joining us now is john hileman and jill wine-banks.

john, the red line has been crossed. what happens next? >> along with the rubicon and whatever else you want. i don't think anything happens in that robert mueller is going to get fired any time soon. i think there are some questions about jeff sessions's future. the pruitt rumor has been from pruitt who would like the job as attorney general and has been floating the notion if jeff sessions gets fired maybe i can step in and take that gig. we are now into a phase where i think largely the obstruction of justice case has been made. the interview that mueller wants to do with trump is still in the offing so there are questions around perjury and those questions. but the larger case that started out as a collusion case but now has become a conspiracy and corruption case, that

investigation is just getting off the ground. this is in some ways not the opening salvo but the early salvo in what looks like an investigation that could go on for many months. >> there is a counter report tonight as john mentioned about scott pruitt, there is a washington post account that john kelly has called him and told him to stop gossiping about the possibility of being attorney general. but if jeff sessions is fired what would it take to get the special counsel fired? >> first of all i can only say in terms of the environment it might be good for pruitt to be out of the epa, but it would be horrible for the special prosecutor and for democracy. so i don't hope that that happens, even though i care about the environment. in terms of getting rid of the special prosecutor, right now it can only be done by the deputy attorney general, who, as you said, isn't going to do it.

and whoever is appointed needs to be confirmed, and i think that there would be some push back, even among republicans if it looked like it was a further step in obstruction of justice. and that's what it would look like to me. so i'm hoping it won't happen and we don't have to go through that. >> john, the general disarray in this trump white house, in this trump administration is all part of this. it seems to have infected everyone in it. and every other night or so there's a discussion, will the special prosecutor be fired. we don't have any sources inside that operation. but can they be completely immune to this kind of talk or might they be taking some kind of prosecutorial precautions against being fired in terms of what would be left of their investigation if the president tried to kill it? >> i'd love to hear jill's answer to the question because

she's better qualified to answer about what exactly the special prosecutor can do. i would say a couple things. one is that bob mueller is a law man, first and foremost but he's a political creature, he understands the ways of washington and has operated in that for a long time. it's understood that his investigation could be curtailed and he's on a short leash in that sense. part of the reason he's focussed on the obstruction case and tried to get it nailed down before moving to the international levels, he's been working on those, but he's at least getting the obstruction piece in place, so if the attorney general gets replaced or rod rosenstein gets fired and replaced with a new deputy that mueller would have set in motion, gotten as much on the record in the lock up in the first side. but again i'm interested to see what jill thinks as a technical

matter could be done. >> let's suppose the special prosecutor has an obstruction of justice case ready to go against the president, if the special prosecutor is fired, what what happens to all those files? >> as you know, in our case, less than five months after he was appointed, arch bald cox was fired in the saturday night massacre, we had taken precautions. we had made the decision to take home documents -- copies of documents. we took no originals. but we did copy documents that were significant to proving the case against the president and his top aides. and each of us on the actual trial team for the obstruction of justice case took documents home with us and had them in our homes just in case we needed them. we never expected the saturday night massacre to be as dramatic

as it was, and we debated what we would do in that case. it would have been a violation of the rules of the department of justice and the rules of grand jury, which make them secret document that is cannot be revealed just in general, but i think we decided if our democracy was at stake, we might have to take the chance and violate that rule and make it public. i'm glad that we ended up being reappointed after the saturday night massacre and that we can't have to do that. but the comparisons to what's going on now and what they must be thinking every day not knowing who's going to be fired next. and david and michael said something about the first trump meeting we didn't know about. there was also a first watergate break in so every day there's another comparison that makes me think of how similar this is to what happened in watergate. i hope we have the same ending

where justice is done. president ended up resigning rather than being impeached and his top aides ended up in jail. i'm hoping the evidence will support this. i don't know what the evidence will show, but it looks like mueller is really proceeding in a very careful way. the fact we didn't know about the subpoena is because he's handling this in a proper way and not letting out any secrets that shouldn't be let out. i'm very proud of how he's behaving. and i think we all should trust him to keep going in the right way. >> jill wine-banks would be invaluable in the writer's room about every series dramas because she knows something about cliff-hangers. you gave us one tonight. thank you both for joining us. we have breaking news on h.r. mcmaster, sarah sanders has just tweeted that h.r. mcmaster's job is safe within the white house. but that is a tweet from the white house, which is described

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and now it's the white house press secretary versus "the washington post." the "the washington post" is reporting tonight that the president has decided to fire his national security advisor h.r. mcmaster. they include a description of chaos in the white house, they're afraid they might be the next one out the door. they report the mood inside the white house is mania. it has a list of the next firing including ben carson, bed betsy

devos, scott pruitt, ryanzinke and john kelly. and the press secretary just tweeted this. just spoke to potus and general h.r. mcmaster contrary to reports they have a good working relationship and there are no changes at the nsc. jonathan kapart you're biassed you're employed by "the washington post." but if you have to pick for credibility, "the washington post" or the press secretary. >> that's a tough one. >> on h.r. mcmaster's future? >> i'm continuing john's laugh. look, when you read the story by ashley parker and my colleagues

at "the washington post," the key line in there is that they talked to 19 sources in the administration and people who talked to the president. so yes, lawrence, if i have to choose between the president of the united states and "the washington post" i'm going to believe "the washington post." >> i have five people with direct knowledge of the plan. >> with direct knowledge and then 19 overall. >> so the sanders tweet might just delay this somewhat when she says just spoke to potus, there are no changes at nsc. >> notice the verb tense. there are no changes. >> we have no changes to announce at this time. that could be different 12 minutes from now. we know the following is true, one donald trump and h.r. mcmaster have never gotten along. there's reporting on that from the day he was given the job. our own nicole wallace reported a week ago this same thing, not

taking away anything from the post reporting, but this is now reported by multiple organizations hearing from -- credible news authorities, hearing from multiple sources that what has seemed obvious for many months is about to come to fruition. and we are watching donald trump strut around and announce he is about to clean house and get rid of anyone who he doesn't think of his war council. and h.r. mcmaster is someone he hasn't liked for months. so add up the long term and short term and the multiple news organizations, i think sarah sanders is not the person you want to believe on this. >> i can tell you what the president is going to say about his next national security advisor. he's going to say he's someone of tremendous talent. >> tremendous talent. >> in fact, he said that about the current national security advisor. let's listen to that. >> general h.r. mcmaster will become the national security

advisor. he's a man of tremendous talent and tremendous experience. i watched and read a lot over the last two days. he is highly respected by everybody in the military. >> tremendous talent, tremendous experience, highly respected. we'll hear that. >> everyone is the best, the greatest at everything. no matter what happens to general mcmaster, the one thing from the national security sources that i've talked to that mcmaster has brought to the nsc is a sense of stability. when you think about it we're only talking about mcmaster. we're talking about the national security advisor. we're not talking about how he's run that shop and whether it's in disarray. all of that was being talked about when flynn was there, his predecessor. so if anything mcmaster should be given some props for bringing some stability into a tiny

corner of that inferno that is the trump west wing. >> but donald trump does not want stability, he doesn't like it. he announces i want conflict. i like to see people fighting. he loves that. he liked it in the private sector and he likes it now opinion it's not a mark for us, it's a mark in mcmaster's favor. i think in any other administration is a merritt, is a demerit for donald trump. >> they had another episode of a white house staffer getting dragged out of the building. john mcentee, he is the body man, closest to the president at all times carrying personal items the president may want, stays close to him, this is someone who knows a lot about the president, they always do, they are not policy people. after he gets fired from the white house for gambling, online

gambling, probably using a white house computer for it, tens of thousands of dollars in a shot, that guy immediately gets hired by the trump campaign to help pay the gambling debts and keep him close to the election. >> the reelection. the 2020. it's going to be -- it's sort of a dumping ground for people who can't make it at the white house or people as you just said, people the president wants to keep close, like really close. >> john, this guy is being investigated for tax crimes. >> yeah. >> and gets really pulled out of the white house, just strong armed physically out of the building. and that sounds like a first qualification for hiring at the trump campaign. >> right. look, the white house in normal times, the white house has the highest possible standards for hiring.

and the closer you are to the president, the higher the standards are, in theory. and the trump campaign has no standards and had no standards in 2016, and will have no standards in 2020. but i will say it raises interesting questions given that this gentleman, also bb close to the president for a full year, it's suggested here when we look at the investigation, he only started to gamble in this way, at this excessive level in recent days or is this another character who, in fact, has been behaving in an inappropriate way for the entirety of the administration but only now in the wake of the porter scandal do we now have, we probably should pay attention to these people who pose security risks that are close to the president. i'm certain this guys gambling problem did not start last tuesday. >> my favorite line in "the washington post" reporting is this, it's about mcentee getting dragged out of the white house. everybody fears the perp walk.

if it can happen to johnny, it can happen to anybody. it can happen to anybody in the white house who's investigated for tax crimes or has gambling debts in the tens of thousands. >> or whatever else is out there. these people who are living in fear of being frog walked and perp walked out of the white house, what do they have in their backgrounds that have them living in fear. >> i think it's true, it could happen to anybody. >> they didn't know that online gambling was against the rules in the white house. >> the best people. >> thank you both for joining us. coming up, in december, donald trump was humiliated in a special election in alabama where he was supporting the republican candidate, an accused child molester. and this week donald trump was humiliated once again when he was supporting the republican candidate in pennsylvania. we'll cover both of those and where donald trump's

effectiveness now stands as a campaigner for republicans. ♪

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>> donald trump wasn't satisfied with having won that district by 20 points so he had to exaggerate it to 22, but enough trump voters in that district turned against donald trump tuesday night to give that win in the special congressional direction to connor lamb that's what happened in the alabama in election, when donald trump campaigned for roy moore and doug jones beat the republican candidates. the republicans have to be more careful in inviting donald trump to campaign for them because he can do more harm than good. today in an nbc.com article howl raines wrote this, connor lamb and doug jones come at trump's political foundation, the celebrated 40% base, from different angles. but they both demonstrate an important fact, trump's core voters are not as secure as he

may hope. indeed, even in deep-red alabama, key elements of the trump base fell away like chips from a hammered block of stone. if the base slides into the low 30s, trump's fragile coalition of angry, white swing voters and ha pitch waited gop loyalists loses its magic. he ends the piece with the question the republicans are asking after this loss, if trump's endorsements won't work in alabama or pittsburgh, where will they work. raines would be a great political analyst even if he didn't have homes in alabama and pennsylvania but he does split his time between pennsylvania and alabama. so he gets the last word on the election. joining us is howl raines. what did you see happening

tuesday night in pennsylvania? >> well, lawrence, taken together with the alabama result, i think it's brought us to a remarkable moment in the 2018 political year. it's possible to place too much emphasis on off-year elections, but these two taken together send a powerful signal. i think one is, first, the drift among suburban republicans who have, since the reagan days, been reliaby voting for republican candidates drifted away from the trump base and i think that is a very important development. the other thing that i think is equally important in connor lamb and doug jones, we have two young men who contrasted themselves with trump in a

number of ways and i think they are showing a way to -- that the democratic party has to look at, as the kind of candidates they have to -- to recruit. these types of cabinets also tap into what i call the role model issue in my piece. these young democrats that we have seen in alabama, pennsylvania and governor's race in virginia for young people and with all respect to president trump many americans look at him and say is this the kindover american person i want my son or daughter to be?

if you like political drama and political theater and if you like to study the american presidency we are at one of the most fascinating points of covering politics. >> some of them swinging back to the first democrat they have voted for in over 20 years. >> but if they are going to do that do you think it will be basd more on the policy side of what the democratic candidates will say or more on the behavioral side? >> i think there is rage fatigue in the country.

i think it's probably more important than in alabama where there was the odd business of the child molestation charge against the other candidate. i think in both cases there's a policy element that goes happened in hand for the policy element. it said lamb is some sort of a democratic clothing. he made it very clear he is for obama 2k7s care and for the trump tax cut. she unhappy about the deficit that trump is coming. we personally do not like the

practice of abortion but we affirm the right of women to make their own health care decisions. it is a cluster. >> as you know there has been jerry mandering but some are way crazier than others. this one was jerrymandered to the point gross illegality. republicans created a district

in which it was supposed to be impossible for a democrat to win. the republican story was we had a bad candidate. >> yeah. yeah. well, i must say i have been around politics long enough to remember back in the years where there was even among fierce competitors a fierce sportsmanship. there is a grasping so again, i think it's we erosive and we need to watch whether white independence begin to show signs of fracturing. independence begin to show signs

of fracturing. >> thank you for joining us again tonight. always great to have you on. >> thanks, lawrence. we now have breaking news. the wall street journal has confirmed tonight's store i by the washington post about h.r. mcmaster confirmed trump has told kelly he has decided to oust mcmaster administration officials tell me. i don't know what that says. he joins you by phone. it issued tonight saying there is no truth to this that h.r. mcmaster and the president are getting along just fine.

>> that's right. >> and so that if tweet was put in the presented tense. it is change but as we know when in the trump white house it could cover maybe for the rest of this week and next week it could be a different position. >> that's right. we are hearing conflicting things about how soon we should defect mcmaster's departure. he wants to make sure he has the one in mind before he officially moves to oust him.

>> i know you worked with white house sources before. >> it is certainly a feel. >> it is certainly a feel. it is also reporting the story for month and months that mcmaster has been in territory for a while now. the president has been unhappy with how he is doing. it has been in the works for a while even if the president hasn't made the final decision. we are hearing he has made this decision. >> thank you very much for joining us by phone with this

breaking news. really appreciate it. >> thanks for having me. >> john is back to take another shot at this story. now we have the latest report. i want to repeat it. she is tweeting confirmed trump has told kelly she decided to oust mcmaster. they tell me and michael c. bender. they are saying they have been told that the president has told john kelly it is time for mcmaster to go. >> right. look, mcmaster is going to go. the question is the question you raised. you guys discussed this. there are others who trump for apparent ease. it could mean mcmaster -- genuinely dangerous summit meeting.

we have potentially and before that happens potentially both fired in that window when stability is not just important for the administration but important for the world. >> if he wanted to exercise his dignity and quit. he technically has to wait for orders about what to do next. while you're on the with nuclear weapons are mildly.

>> all right. more on this breaking news on the 11th hour with brian williams which starts now. news "the 11th hour" with brian williams which starts now. the breaking news tonight, "the washington post" reporting the president's now ready to replace h.r. mcmaster has his national security adviser and mulling over candidates for the job. other moving parts, the trump administration subpoenaed by robert mueller and the u.s. announces sanctions on russia for interfering in the 2016 election and for hacking into our power plants but when asked whether putin is a friend or foe, the white house says it's up to russia to decide. that and more as "the 11th hour" gets under way. another busy thursday from